Newburyport Loses In Overtime To North Andover, 15-13

September 27, 2008

The Newburyport Clippers (0-4), playing their strongest game of the year to date, lost a heart breaker to the North Andover Scarlet Knights (1-2), 15-13, in North Andover Friday evening.

They lost in overtime after the score was tied, 7-7, at the end of four quarters of regulation play. This season the Point After Touchdown (PAT) part of the game has been their Achilles heel.

Last night Newburyport scored on the first possession of overtime, but couldn’t convert on the two-point PAT conversion attempt. On North Andover’s overtime possession, the Scarlet Knights scored and successfully converted on their PAT conversion attempt to win the game by two points for their first win of the season.

Their were several bright spots for the Clippers team last night. The Clippers defense rose to the occasion last night and played a strong game against North Andover in weather conditions that started out very poor but improved as the game progressed. The heavy rain and and wind gusts slowly diminished throughout the game and had stopped for the most part by early in the third quarter.

Senior Derek Freeman had one of the strongest games of his career on offense and was the dominant rusher for the Clippers. He carried the ball for almost a hundred yards rushing and helped Newburyport extend drives several times throughout the game. The Clippers showed a more balanced offense this week and they were able to move the ball down the field throughout the game. The Clippers were hurt on offense a few times by fumbles which stopped potential scoring drives.

Next week Newburyport plays the Pentucket Sachems (1-1) at home in the World War Memorial Stadium in Newburyport at 7:00 pm.